The Ones to Watch: weekend 18/19 April

John Barrowman presents Tonight's the Night, a new saturday night
entertainment show on BBC One and Louis Theroux travels to California to
investigate a hospital which rehabilitates paedophiles in BBC Two's A Place
for Paedophiles.

Louis Theroux presents the documentary A Place for PaedophilesPhoto: BBC

Having already defended the planet against alien attacks in Torchwood, danced with panache on ice, and helped to solve a problem like Maria, the Scottish-American actor/singer John Barrowman was bound to get his own light entertainment series sooner or later. Tonight’s the Night is a sort of glitzy hybrid of Jim’ll Fix It and Stars in Their Eyes, with studio competitions, mystery celebrity appearances and a good dollop of wish-fulfilment, as each week an unsuspecting member of the audience is pulled on to the stage for a unique performance. First up: singing a number with the cast of an as-yet-unnamed West End musical. PN

SUNDAY

Louis Theroux: A Place for Paedophiles

BBC Two, 9.00pm

How to rehabilitate convicted paedophiles and sex offenders on completion of prison sentences is an abiding problem. According to Louis Theroux, California’s answer is simple: don’t. Instead of releasing them, they’re put straight behind bars again but in “hospital”, not prison. Thus the sole function of Coalinga State Hospital seems to be to “warehouse” 800 former prisoners. The only way out is to undergo years of therapy. But 70 per cent of the facility’s population refuse therapy, claiming that the system is a sham that condemns them to remain incarcerated all their lives. Theroux spends a week talking to inmates and their medical minders. GO